Ye Chen shook his head with a smile and said no more; Hong Wu’s black-and-white sense of justice, his blunt ways, were things he had grown accustomed to.
Some forty minutes later, Chen Zekai pulled into the Parkville district of Melbourne and arrived at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
After parking in the lot, Chen Zekai said to Ye Chen, “Young Master, Butler Tang is in the intensive care unit of the emergency department. Shall we head in now, or send someone ahead to scout first?”
Ye Chen said, “Straight in.”
With that, he pushed open the door and stepped out.
Ye Chen figured that since Wu Feiyan had never targeted the Ye family for elimination, Tang Sihai, as the family’s butler, would not be on her radar either, so he need not worry about drawing the Poqing Society into this mess.
With the Poqing Society out of the equation, there was little left to fret over. The priority was to go in, see Tang Sihai, heal his wounds without delay, and get to the bottom of why he had left without a word.
And so, the three entered the hospital together and made for the emergency department. Chen Zekai inquired about the location of the intensive care unit and led Ye Chen and Hong Wu up to the second floor.
At the nurses’ station on the second floor, an on-duty nurse called out to them in English, “Who are you looking for?”
Chen Zekai replied at once, “We’re looking for the injured Chinese gentleman, about sixty-something years old, in intensive care.”
The nurse said, “He has been discharged.”
“Discharged?!”
Aside from Hong Wu, who could not understand English, Ye Chen and Chen Zekai were both dumbfounded.
Ye Chen stepped forward immediately and pressed her, “When was he discharged? Wasn’t his condition serious? Why let him go?”
The nurse said, “He left three hours ago. His injuries were indeed severe, but he was no longer in mortal danger. He insisted on discharging himself, and we could not force him to stay, so we processed the paperwork.”
Ye Chen frowned and quickly asked, “Do you know who collected him?”
“No one.” The nurse said, “He left on his own, using a crutch.”
Ye Chen was utterly astonished.
Even if Tang Sihai was out of immediate danger, the photos Xiao Churan had shown him made it clear his injuries were far from minor; he would need at least a month of bed rest to recover properly. Yet here he was, less than twenty-four hours later, discharging himself. This hasty exit, was it to evade whom?
Those teenagers?
Or some old enemy?
Or perhaps, to evade him?
Ye Chen could not make sense of it for the moment. What he did not realise was that he had already fallen for Tang Sihai’s ploy of luring the tiger away from the mountain.
Even less did he know that at this very moment, Tang Sihai, limping along with the aid of several men in black, was boarding a small HondaJet at a modest civilian airstrip on the outskirts of Melbourne.
The aircraft was privately owned by a small-time mine operator from Western Australia, not particularly wealthy, so this sub-ten-million-dollar private jet was hardly ostentatious. In these parts, it was just an entry-level toy for the merely affluent.
Since it was a private airfield takeoff, and the filed flight plan ran from Melbourne to Port Hedland in Western Australia, with no international legs, the passengers faced no inspections or registrations. They simply drove onto the field, bypassed the terminal altogether, and boarded at the end of the runway.
The plane’s owner resided in Melbourne with his family during off-work periods and flew solo to Western Australia for business. His main trade involved shipping iron ore from his mines to Port Hedland for export to clients in China, so he made the round trip between Melbourne and there most weeks. Tang Sihai hitching a ride on his jet made it nigh impossible for outsiders to trace.
The plane taxied and lifted off in the dawn light, streaking from Australia’s southeast towards the northwest, tracing a diagonal across the continent.
Once the aircraft touched down at the airfield near Port Hedland, Tang Sihai would board an iron ore freighter and set sail from there for Japan.
Meanwhile, outside the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Ye Chen gazed at the sprawling city road network and frowned, “Butler Tang’s mobility is impaired, so on his own, he couldn’t have gone far.”
Chen Zekai asked, “Young Master, shall I mobilise the local staff to track him down?”
Ye Chen sighed, “I’m afraid Butler Tang is deliberately avoiding me.”
At that, something occurred to Ye Chen, and he said to Chen Zekai at once, “Come on, to the police station. We’ll ask the local constabulary for help. Butler Tang only immigrated to Australia recently, so his legal documents and procedures must be all in order. The police might have more details on file.”
Chen Zekai nodded, but asked with some concern, “Young Master, what identity shall we use to request their assistance? If the police insist on verifying our connection to Butler Tang first, it will be hard to produce any proof.”
Ye Chen felt an inexplicable irritation and, brow furrowed, said, “We’ll try our luck first. If they make it too difficult, I have ways to make them talk!”
